entr'acte
by seastarved
Summary: I just really wanted to know what happened after that kiss in Veld.


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: I just really wanted to know what happened after that kiss so here you go, have some feelings. 3

* * *

Diana breathes soft in the moonlight.

Her eyes are closed as her chest rises and falls slowly. A stray breeze flutters through a crack in the window cooling her overheated skin. She smiles gently as the bed dips beside her, the heat of him pulling just a touch away as he lies on her other side with a soft grunt. It is quickly followed by a barely audible whisper—

 _oh my god_

— that pulls a chuckle out of her. Her eyes open to the tiny cracks in the ceiling of the room, a small chandelier hanging in the middle, swaying in the wisps of breeze that filter through the window. She lets out a breath, sinking deeper into the mattress, her hands beginning to reach for him but the window frame rattles suddenly, a sharp wind cutting through the room, her shoulders shivering involuntarily as she turns to glare at it.

Another grunt as the bed shifts, his weight lifting off but falling back quickly even as a softer weight settles on her legs, his hands pulling the quilt over them.

The window frame rattles again, gentler this time, the chandelier drifting to the rhythm of her breaths.

"So,"

His voice is soft by her ear as though afraid to break the fragile bubble of silence that surrounds them, his one syllable extending and fading away as the bed shifts once more, as she feels his eyes on her.

"Mmm?"

She hums in question, her smile still firmly planted on her face, her hand reaching out once again to find him but before she can, the swaying chandelier is replaced by his face hovering above her.

"Still agree with Clio on the whole," he waves his arm in the air, "unnecessary thing?"

She laughs out loud this time, her hand coming out to trace the curve of his smile, her other hand reaching out to hold on to his shoulder.

"Well, I don't know."

"Oh come on, that was definitely above average, at least."

The hand on his shoulder drifts lower, her eyebrow rising even as she holds in the laughter that bubbles at her lips.

"It was satisfactory."

He groans and buries his head in her shoulder and she can hold on to her laughter no longer. It's escapes her in a breathless chuckle and fills the space of the silence in the room, her hand reaching up to run her fingers through the short hair at nape of his neck even as he huffs his own laugh into her skin.

"I'll take it," he mumbles, his breath hot against her cool skin, his lips warm and soft as he presses a soft kiss there before pulling away to face her once more. Her fingers still wandering the lines on his face, she watches as his eyes search hers, watches as his smile slowly falls away.

And inexplicably, she is filled with an urge to bring it back, coax his lips to curve into a grin, to pull into a laugh. She wants to make a joke about them being married now that he'd slept with her, to remind him (maybe herself) of when her heart had yet not begun to buckle under the weight of all the suffering that lived in the world outside but the words die on her lips, her mouth opening and closing in silence even as he follows the lines of her lips as it does.

"Diana-"

His own words seem to die too and she finds herself caught in the moment, in all the ways their story plays out- for surely he was a part of her story as much as she was part of his- in the millions of directions their lives could take when they left this place in a few hours.

Trapped in a little eternity of possibility, his eyes lost in hers, his fingers trailing along her shoulder, his other hand caressing her waist, words waiting behind his lips even as he holds them in.

She finds that she wants to know them, to hear him say what lurks in the most intimate corners of his heart, to hear his stories- how he'd become a spy, what stories did his mother tell him when he would not sleep, did he have nightmares too?

Oh how she _wants_.

It seems to consume her, her heart pounding in a frantic rhythm as though waiting to jump off the edge of a cliff. It feels-

Human.

And it is too much.

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, her hands pushing against him in the barest of pressures before he understands and moves away, his weight flopping down again by her side, a quick whisper of her name in a question is all she hears as she pulls the quilt from atop her, pressing her hands to the mattress and standing up.

She feels him watching her as she goes to the window, her eyes turning up, searching the stars as she had often found herself doing at home- when she yet had one- her heart twinging in sadness as she realises that they hold no answers for her tonight. No answers to the questions that lay unnamed and unformed in her heart.

She turns her eyes to the earth instead, to the fountain where she had sat a few hours ago and watched the people dance, watched them sing and laugh and love. But now, the ground is bare and covered in a clean layer of fresh snow, flakes still drifting gently past her window. It too holds no answers, no comfort. She is about to turn away, her heart heavier still with thoughts of bitter almosts when she sees them.

They stand too close to the fountain, barely swaying as the snow drifts about them that she had almost missed them. But then the woman had thrown her head back in a laugh whose sound Diana could not hear from her window. The man holding her only pulling her closer, burying his head in her shoulder before continuing to dance.

All alone in the night, as the stars watched on.

She feels her smile grow once more, her heart ease as she watches them do what people do when there is no war.

A sudden warmth surrounds her then, softly enveloping her as her wonderful big coat is draped around her shoulders. She smiles into the fabric-

"Thank you."

"Don't want you to freeze before you have a chance to kill Ares, now do we?"

She hears the smile in his voice as he speaks but she also hears the strain, the dread and the anticipation of whatever awaits them tomorrow.

She knows, because she feels it too.

She feels him at her back, stepping closer, his arms hovering by her waist, coming forward and retreating and she frowns at them before shaking her head and grabbing his hands to put around her waist.

He relaxes instantly, stuttering a chuckle into her coat. They stand there for a moment and her eyes close as she leans back into him, her face raised to the stars as she remembers again what she is here to do.

To protect this. To save _this._

To make sure that people can dance again.

"We should get some sleep. I'll go out tomorrow morning first thing to get that uniform and-"

His voice pulls her back, his arms tightening around her as he speaks, his sentence fading away into nothing as he leans his head against her, his forehead between her shoulder blades.

She squeezes his fingers, takes a deep breath before turning around, before ending their little bubble of peace.

"We should get some sleep," she repeats.

He nods, his face carrying the sad remnants of his smile now, his eyes drooping a little in fatigue. She runs her fingers one last time along his face as he pulls her closer by her waist for a long moment before letting go.

Perhaps once this is done, perhaps once Ares is dead, she would ask him about that scar on his hip, about the creases in his brow.

Perhaps she would.

But she could not think about that tonight, while Ares still ran rampant in the world.

She would have time, after.

They would have time.


End file.
